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Anastasia Basil Follow

Aug 25 · 3 min read · · Listen

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“Crotch” is Not a Dress Length

Judging Girls: the Last Acceptable Bias

Photo by: SIphotography

In high school, I went through a phase of 1.3K

wearing miniskirts
11 with high-heeled pumps. One
particularly unfabulous outfit involved a bright yellow miniskirt with shock-red heels. My
p y g y y
mother tried to keep me from leaving the house “looking like that” and failed.Get
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16, I was

stubborn as a corpse. What's that old saying? You can hit a corpse, scream at it, knock it to
pieces, but you cannot convince it. She gave up trying and took to making disgusted faces
when I entered the room. My mother quickly became the last person I would turn to in a
time of need.

Teens end up in unsafe relationships and dangerous spaces. They lose themselves in a
wasteland of self-hate and make countless mistakes. What I needed was a cornerman. I’m
not sure if they still use this term but a cornerman is the one person allowed in the ring
with the boxer. The teen years are a one-on-one combat sport: Teen vs __. (You name it,
they’re battling it.) But their toughest opponent, by far, is their own developing brain.

A cornerman tends wounds, wraps hands before the next round, and signals the referee to
stop the (self) pummeling when things get bad. Teens usually put a friend in this role, but
a cornerman needs to know what they’re doing. A parent is ideal (we’ve been there/done
that) but most of us forget what it feels like to be a teen. Nostalgia dumps a bottle of glitter
over our memories and all we remember is how different we were at their age: I wouldn’t
have been caught dead wearing/saying/doing that!

Here’s the rub: The boxer chooses the cornerman, the cornerman does not choose the
boxer. When your teen missteps, blows it, vapes, needs a ride home after drinking, meets
an online stranger, or falls apart, would you rather be the first person they want in their
corner or the last?

Recently, I saw this comment by a mother of two sons: “Crotch” is not a dress length! If my
son’s prom date showed up looking like that, I’d march her right out the door and send her
home to change!

I found this comment interesting and horrible. Would she send the girl away because she
didn’t want her son to be seen with this kind of person? Does a prom dress tell us
something that Brock Turner’s tie doesn’t? Or maybe her son sees hemlines as traffic
lights: below the knee, stop; at the knee, go slow; above the knee, gun it.

I h 80 if l k d i i l i h b ll d “ ”
In the 80s, if you looked a certain way or wore a certain style, you might be called “gay”—
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app appearance.
whether you were or weren’t—it was meant as an insult: We don’t like We

don’t approve. Society tolerated discrimination and openly hurtful opinions, but not today.
Unless… that person is a girl wearing X,Y, or Z. (You name it, it’s a problem to someone.)

In high school, I had a boyfriend who was the darling of every mother’s eye. He was
polite, friendly, and nicely dressed. He came from a great family. But if his khaki pants and
pressed shirts could talk, they would have said: “I’m possessive, foul, and manipulative. I
drink to the point of blackouts, and when I drink, I’m dangerous. I gun the gas and pull
the emergency brake and laugh when my girlfriend screams as the car spins out.”

His clothes were normatively appropriate, and therefore silent. If my high school miniskirt
and spiked heels could talk, would they tell onlookers that I stayed up late reading
Steinbeck and Hesse, that I wrote letters to my long-lost dog, that I read and reread The
Diary of Anne Frank alone in my room trying to make sense of a god who would allow her
to suffer and die.

Would that be enough? Is anything ever enough when it comes to women and girls? Next
time you see a hemline or an outfit or tattoo or piercing you don’t approve of, focus more
on what that says about you than what it says about the subject of your disapproval.

Want to help end gender discrimination? The Malala Fund is doing great work to change
norms, attitudes, and policies that limit girls’ opportunities across the globe. Join them! ❤︎

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